Throwback Thursday: Ye Very Olde Bloomingdale Road (Broadway) in the Colonial...
A few months ago, a new website developed by John Jay College caught my attention. Like many institutions of higher education, the College
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James Baldwin’s Former UWS Home May Become a Landmark
Writer James Baldwin bought the building at 137 West 71st Street in 1965, and lived there on and off for the last two decades of his life. Now the city is considering designating the building between...
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Throwback Thursday: Forty Years Ago, the UWS Had Quite the Style
Stephen Harmon took hundreds of pictures of the neighborhood in the 70’s and 80’s and thankfully he still has many of them. Check out some of these personality-filled shots. See more of his photos...
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Throwback Thursday: The ‘Broadway Ladies’ of the Late 70s
The photo and hand-coloring above are by Joan Menschenfreund, who has lived on the Upper West Side for 51 years. The women were sitting in the Broadway median at 79th Street. She painted it “with...
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An ‘Accidental’ Upper West Side Landlord Traveled a Rocky Road to a Windfall;...
Editor’s Note: Thomas Haines has published a memoir called “A Curious Life: From Rebel Orphan to Innovative Scientist” that includes this history. The buildings Haines and his wife bought at 12 and 14...
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Weekend History: Two Signs Emerge From the Past
As much as we try to paper over the past, it’s usually still hiding near the surface. Two signs that were recently spotted in the neighborhood brought back memories from decades ago. Peter Salwen...
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5 Events This Month to Learn Upper West Side History
Ye Olde Broadway at 90th Street in 1920. Photo by Arthur Hosking. There are five talks scheduled this month about local history, including two this week. Two are from the Bloomingdale History Group,...
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Throwback Thursday: A Photographer Captured That 70s and 80s Vibe
Mark Futral has photographed Upper West Siders for decades, and he sent us some of his shots from the 1970s and 80s, along with some information on how he got into street photography. “I used to walk...
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Throwback Thursday: One of the Classic Upper West Side Movie Theaters
The New Yorker Theater at 2409 Broadway at 88th Street was one of the great Upper West Side movie houses of the 20th century. Woody Allen also shot a famous scene in Annie Hall in its lobby. Jean...
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Exhibit Sets the Life of Rock-and-Roll Impresario Bill Graham to the Music He...
Take a musical trip back in time. By Carol Tannenhauser The Bill Graham exhibition at the New-York Historical Society is visually exciting, nostalgic and accompanied by a terrific soundtrack that is...
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Famed Garage Where Robert Caro Cracked the Robert Moses Code Now Gated Off
The famed garage looks nondescript from the outside. By Skip Card One of the holy sites of investigative journalism in New York City has been fenced off from public view – although the site is so...
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A Young Quarantined Artist Draws the View Outside His Window, Then Imagines...
A 21-year-old Upper West Side artist named Benjamin M. has been home during the quarantine and he decided to draw the view outside his bedroom window. His view is dominated by the Schwab House, which...
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7 Walks in 7 Days: Alexander von Humboldt Was a Celebrity in His Day
Alexander von who? Read on. Photo by Anita Highton. By Marjorie Cohen As the weather improves, it’s a good time to explore some parts of the UWS that may be new to you. Whether you’re a solitary...
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Throwback Thursday: When Olivia de Havilland Visited the Upper West Side
Photographs courtesy of Metropolitan Photo Service. Frank Rowley was the administrator of Lincoln Plaza Cinemas when it closed, to the great dismay of the neighborhood, in January, 2018. He worked side...
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Upper West Side History: A Home for ‘Fallen Women’ on West 86th Street
Richmond, John Francis New York and Its Institutions 1609-1871 New York E.B. Treat 1872. By Pam Tice, of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group The full version of this article, with sources, is...
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